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A First Marine Vibrio Biocatalyst to Produce Ethanol from Alginate, which is a Rich Polysaccharide in Brown Macroalgal Biomass

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Abstract

The use of un-utilized feedstock and seawater for material and/or energy production using marine microbial catalysts is one potential option toward contributing to the development of a more sustainable society. Ethanol production from alginate, which is an oxidized polysaccharide present in brown seaweed, is extremely difficult due to the imbalance of reducing power in the microbial cells. Production of ethanol by such means has so far been unsuccessful using marine microbial biocatalysts. To produce ethanol from alginate, an alternative pathway consisting of a pyruvate decarboxylase gene (pdc) and an alcohol dehydrogenase II gene (adhII) derived from Zymomonas mobilis strain ZM4 was implemented into a metabolically engineered bacterium, Vibrio halioticoli, which is a representative marine alginate decomposer. No ethanol from alginate was produced in the wild-type V. halioticoli; however, the engineered V. halioticoli harboring the pdc and adhII operon (Pet operon), designated to the V. halioticoli (Pet), was able to produce 880 mg/L ethanol in maximum from 1.5% alginate for 72 h. The Pet operon also worked on the other marine alginolytic vibrios for ethanol production from alginate. This is the first case of ethanol production from alginate using marine bacterial biocatalysts under seawater-based media.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr. Stabb (University of Illinois Chicago) for providing vectors. This work was partly supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Nos. 21380129, 23658172, 26660168 and 16K14978.

Funding

This work was supported by the MEXT Kaken 21380129, 23658172, 26660168, and 16K14978.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Microbiology, Faculty of Fisheries Sciences, Hokkaido University, Hakodate, Japan

    Yutaro Inohara, Jiang Chunqi, Sayaka Mino & Tomoo Swabe

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  1. Yutaro Inohara
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  2. Jiang Chunqi
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  4. Tomoo Swabe
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Contributions

Conceptualization was performed by TS; research and data analysis by YI and TS; writing—original draft preparation—by YI and TS; writing—review and editing—by TS, CJ, HK, and SM; resources by TS. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

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Correspondence to Tomoo Swabe.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Genetically modified organism works were performed under the regulation of Hokkaido University.

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Inohara, Y., Chunqi, J., Mino, S. et al. A First Marine Vibrio Biocatalyst to Produce Ethanol from Alginate, which is a Rich Polysaccharide in Brown Macroalgal Biomass. Curr Microbiol 80, 143 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-023-03250-y

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